alibi
by hyacinthian
Summary: the aftermath and consequences of iOMG. SamFreddie.


a/n: post- iomg.

* * *

><p>In the end, he'll say that he didn't know what to do. Freddie's always been a person to think things out, to make pro-con lists and figure out what to do from there. He doesn't know what to do with this. It isn't as simple as just kissing her back. Of course it isn't. <p>

* * *

><p>He finds her on the roof of Carly's building a few hours later.<p>

"What are you doing up here?"

"Fishing," she says, rolling her eyes. "What do you think I'm doing?"

It seems easy enough to just sit next to her, but he's always been a self-sabotage kind of guy. His feet stay where they are.

"Don't worry, Benson," she says. "I'm not going to attack you."

He slides through the window and stands on the landing with a weak smile. "I didn't think you were going to - you don't really seem to have feelings most of the time."

"Thanks." She doesn't look at him. "You know, I don't need your pity."

"This isn't pity."

"Then what is it?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

She shakes her head and steps back in the building. She leaves him locked out on the landing until Spencer comes by a few hours later to let him back in. 

* * *

><p>She skips school.<p>

A week of school. 

* * *

><p>It's never become more apparent to him that this is wholly new territory, something far removed from schoolyard crushes and whatever else. When they're filming iCarly, she doesn't even look at him. Doesn't insult him, doesn't crack jokes, doesn't push him around.<p>

It's the closest he's come to understanding her in his entire life. 

* * *

><p>Carly, of course, tries to intervene. "You have to apologize," she says to him over an after school iced tea.<p>

"I _did_," he says.

She wrinkles her nose. "What, really?"

"Yeah."

"Like an actual apology?"

"Yeah."

"And she - "

He gives a noncommittal shrug.

"Oh."

"Yeah. _Oh_." 

* * *

><p>He even brings her some of her favourite bacon.<p>

She doesn't even touch it.

This is when he knows that things have really gotten bad. 

* * *

><p>"You really hurt her, man," Gibby tells him at the Groovy Smoothie. He's not generally one to take advice from Gibby given the sheer amount of logical distance that his advice can range, but this seems pretty sound. "I've really gotten to know her in all the years she's beaten me up."<br>Freddie gives Gibby a pat on the back.

"Thanks, man." 

* * *

><p>He isn't used to this. Grandiose romantic gestures to prove his undying unrequited love for Carly? That was easy. All that required was maybe a few romantic-comedy Blockbuster movie rentals and maybe some Googling. All the standard romantic gestures, Carly's a fan of.<p>

To say Sam is a lot harder is an understatement.

And honestly, he doesn't even know if he really wants to make these gestures. The thing with Sam is ... confusing. He can't even sort out his thoughts half the time. It isn't a clear cut ache the way it was with Carly for so long, but it also feels so much stronger than whatever he had for Carly. And it isn't even like they were really friends - more like friends of Carly's that hung out - but it feels like he should be trying to make things right. 

* * *

><p>"Do you like her?" Carly asks one night.<p>

"I don't know," he says.

"Is that the truth?"

"Yeah. I think so." 

* * *

><p>Sam lands herself in juvie for a few days for fighting some kid at a city park and he and Carly go to bail her out. They've got those plastic screen things they show in the movies, and really gross old-looking phones.<p>

She makes a rude gesture at him.

"Get out," she yells.

The security guard in the corner raises an eyebrow. 

* * *

><p>If he had to guess, he supposes all the damage he inflicted on her was emotional. Not so much the physical kind. The physical was her thing. <p>

* * *

><p>He corners her in the iCarly studio when Carly isn't there one day. "You ever going to talk to me? Or go to school again?"<p>

"What's it to you?"

Don't get things wrong: he's still confused. This time, he's less worried about the thinking, more about the reacting. He grabs her and kisses her, hoping that he's at least a little better than totally awkward. His fingertips dig into her back, grazing her hair. Her hands come up to his shoulders and give him a hard push.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

He opens his mouth to say something only to close it when he finds he has nothing really explanatory to say. "You should come back to school."

She arches a brow. "Is this your way of saying you miss me?"

"I wouldn't want you to rot in juvie."

She scoffs. "You don't rot in juvie."

"That's what you think."

She laughs softly.

He looks down at his shoes. "Are we, um - we okay?"

"You still don't know what you think?"

He shakes his head.

"Back to normal? Me beating you up, you crying like a little girl?"

"Yeah."

She sets her jaw and leaves the studio. 

* * *

><p>"It isn't so easy for girls," Carly says, by way of explanation, when he tells her what happened. "And you were probably confusing her with that whole kissing thing."<p>

"But it isn't a girl," he protests. "It's _Sam_. She shouldn't be so ... weird about it."

Carly steals one of his nachos. "She is." She shrugs.

Freddie buries his head in his arms. What the hell is he supposed to do about something like this? 

* * *

><p>Sam has some sort of weird make out fling with Jonah.<p>

Or so Freddie hears. 

* * *

><p>He catches her when she's sitting outside the Shay apartment, the smell of beer heavy on her.<p>

"You know Spencer'll kill you if he smells you, right?"

She squints up at him and shrugs. "High school parties. What are you going to do? What are you doing up anyway? Doesn't your mom have you on a leash?"

"Oh, that's real nice."

She groans and slumps further along the wall, closing her eyes.

"You need to throw up?"

She cracks one eye open. "What, you think I've never been to a party like this before?"

He raises his hands in apology. "Sorry."

"I'll be fine," she says. "Mama just needs a burger. Maybe a frozen burrito."

"Where are you going to sleep it off?"

Sam's fiddling with a bobby pin, trying to pick the Shays' lock. "I might break into the school again."

"You sleep at the school?"

"Ted's office has a sofa."

"You sleep in _Principal Franklin's office_?"

"I can't believe you sound shocked."

"You're going to get yourself caught."

"Not if certain idiots keep their mouths shut. You get me?" She stands then, albeit a bit shakily, and leans over him, as intimidating as she can manage. She leans down a little further then, kisses him once.

"Don't get caught," he calls after her. 

* * *

><p>When they're planning bits to use for the next show, Carly lays down her index cards on the table and says, "You guys are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid."<p>

Sam shoots him a look before rolling her eyes. "Whatever, Carls."

He doesn't think he's ever seen Sam look so intently at index cards before.

"We gonna do the Talking Mustaches bit or what?"

"Yeah," Carly says. "I think that'll be good." 

* * *

><p>"You ever going to forgive me?"<p>

"I've already forgotten about it, Fredward."

He offers to buy her a smoothie but then she fishes his wallet out of her jacket pocket. ("You really need to be a little quicker on the uptake, Freddie. Shouldn't be so easy to pick your pocket.") 

* * *

><p>Two months later, he drags her out to the landing and tells her that he's ready.<p>

"Ready for what? Me kicking your ass?"

And pushing her up against the window, he kisses her until he can't breathe. She laughs.

It starts pouring.

They get drenched. 

* * *

><p>"This doesn't mean we're going to be gross, does it?" she says, drying her hair off.<p>

"No?"

"Good answer." 

* * *

><p>She gives him a list of things she won't do in public: hold hands, talk to him, touch him, call him anything other than insults and the occasional use of his name, refer to them as an us, refer to them as a we, refer to them existing at all, defend him, stop beating him up, etc. etc.<p>

He takes it to the Scientific Method: he pulls her behind the lockers after fourth period and kisses her.

She doesn't punch him in the face.

She half-knocks him into the lockers. Not as harsh as he was expecting.

"That's a start," he says.

"Don't be lame, Benson." 

* * *

><p>Things don't change that much.<p>

Sometimes she grabs him and kisses him when Carly leaves to go to the bathroom or get a drink or talk to Spencer or something - _it's weird, okay_, Sam says, _like doing it with my sister in the room_ - and he doesn't talk to her about Melanie because _whoo, funny story, i kissed your sister once because i thought she was you_ is not really a story that he wants to talk to her about during these moments.

And sometimes she'll pull away and remind him, _don't take this as a sign that i like you_.

_like i could ever_.

He doesn't mind the change as much as he thought he would.


End file.
